As more and more American companies compete for business overseas, legal documents, such as contracts or pleadings, increasingly have to be translated. Getting translations right for sensitive and legally binding documents is a high-stakes challenge, with potential rewards and certain downsides if not done right.

The Success Factors for Reliable Legal Translations

By Nadine Robert
Nadine is the managing editor of the Legaco Express for Paralegals and the managing partner of Legaco LLC, a premier provider of high-quality legal translations.

With the tremendous growth of interconnected business dealings around the world over the past century, the need for highly professional translations in the commercial, financial, technical and legal fields has risen significantly.

The connectedness of the Internet has brought a vastly increased availability of translators and translation agencies but the task of distinguishing reliable players from less reliable ones has also become more difficult.

An added difficulty comes from the fact that most translation providers are geographically located in other parts of the US or abroad and contracts are therefore not negotiated in person, but rather through email or over the phone. But when it comes to the translation of sensitive and important documents, that often legally bind the party that orders the translation without being able to read the actual text in the foreign language, trust and reliability, paired with the assurance that the translator is legally astute in both relevant legal realms, are more than important factors.

Another issue is the time required to find and properly vet translators, especially when a firm or company has to deal with several countries and languages, often on short notice.

—— The difficulties to overcome ——

The subtlety of the problem makes it easy to overlook the quality issues that can sneak into a translation and therefore bind a firm or client in unwanted and unexpected ways in other jurisdictions. Generally, a translation is a product whose quality is not known to the client until it causes a problem. And when a problem arises, it is usually too late to improve the translated document. In other words, one of the fundamental problems is that clients unwittingly use legal translations that differ in meaning and effect from the source texts!

1. Legal translations and the deadline pressure

Legal translations usually require more time than regular translations due to their nature and the required verification of meaningful legal subtleties. At the same time, the legal documents that need to be translated are often the culmination of a lengthy work and/or negotiations process. It is not uncommon that documents are finalized at the last minute, leaving even less time for the translations that may be necessary to be completed. And nobody wants to delay the closing of a deal due to translation issues. This naturally goes counter the fact that the translation of sensitive legal documents is necessarily time-consuming since it must not only take linguistic subtleties into account but also the legal system and specific context of each involved country in order to service its purpose: convey the exact legal meaning and consequences as in the original.

2. How to translate the untranslatable

Certain legal expressions are so specific to their area that they can be regarded as "untranslatable" because the legal concepts underlying them are so different. For example, the concept of “habeas corpus” that is found in England and the United-States does not exist in some countries or means something else in yet other countries. Another good example is the term “consideration” used in contracts under American Common Law. This essential concept that is a standard part of many American contracts cannot be translated into another language without a lengthy explanation.

3. Legalese and regional variations

The meaning of legal verbiage can vary considerably from one country to another. For example, the legal languages of France, Quebec, Wallonia, Senegal and other French-speaking areas vary greatly.

And generally accepted use of legal language can also vary greatly at the regional level, especially in countries such as the United-States with federal, state and local jurisdictions. The variations can be found in the formality and structure of the legal systems, the vocabularies, and the legal expressions. They also reflect the different cultures, and political, economic, and social histories of each community. "Jurisprudencia" does not bear the same legal meaning in Mexico as it does in Spain, just as "consideration" is not the same in Connecticut as it is in England.

4. Translation of “false friends”

The trap here is one of similar spelling but potentially very different legal meaning. The high risk of finding false cognates when comparing the legal vocabularies of two different countries is also an important difficulty.

For example, a deed for the transfer of a property or an agreement for the management of an estate are all referred to as "contracts" in French. This simple fact frequently creates major complications and misunderstandings when dealing with German and English translations of such French "contracts" or when they a re referred to in other documents.

These commonplace traps illustrate that the use of language dictionaries and even sometimes the use of legal dictionaries is not enough to provide an accurate legal translation and no translation tool can replace specific legal training in the target and source languages and countries.

5. Translation, punctuation, and grammar

Today, legal commentators urge that punctuation be treated as an indispensable part of the text, equal in status to the words themselves. Therefore, as different languages apply different standards, unwanted and highly problematic results can simply result from not taking the subtleties of grammar and punctuation rules properly into account.

—— In search of translation excellence ——

6. Translation and accuracy

A good translation must use correct industry-specific terminology, convey all possible nuances and ambiguities of the source text and not create or contribute to the creation of ambiguities when the source text provides clarity.

It must also ensure that all used legal concepts precisely have the same legal effects as their source equivalents or use explanations in cases where it may not be possible to construct exact equivalents in the target language.

7. Translation and fluency

Fluency, and not merely proficiency, in both the source and target languages is required in order to decipher the correct meaning of a sentence and to find the correct corresponding phrase that expresses the same meaning in the target language.

But even advanced knowledge of a certain language does not guarantee successful translations. It is the nuances of a language and in-depth knowledge of the subject matter being translated or interpreted that makes the difference.

It is therefore often necessary that the translator not only masters the two languages (preferably as a bilingual speaker) but that the translator also has hands-on work experience in the target realm in order to know exatly in which ways and with which implicit meaning the technical terms are used.

8. Translations by professionals

Translators of legal texts face particularly difficult challenges because of the very nature of the texts they deal with and because of the potential stakes that mistakes can generate.

Usually, by the time translators become involved with a project, challenging legal considerations have already been discussed, negotiated or otherwise taken into account. Obviously, once an agreement has been reached, the parties generally want to avoid reopening legal issues at that point in time. Additionally, in many cases, very significant amounts of money and perhaps even corporate survival are at stake.

The translator must therefore be astute in maintaining the clarity and the spirit of the agreements and recognize sensitive areas in order not to bring up new disagreements between the parties.

In court, the outcome of cases may hinge upon the words produced by the translator and his/her testimony regarding the meaning in a different language that the judge may not be able to read. As a result, legal translators may be thrusted into positions of trust and power, making their qualifications and expertise an even more important issue.

In effect, legal translations are exercises in comparative law that only (bilingual) legal professionals can accomplish successfully,

9. Translations and project management

To ensure perfect reliability and accuracy of the translated document, translators must be able to consult with other legal professionals, financial analysts, and experts about terminological difficulties. Additionally, the process must be secure and reliable to make sure that deadlines can be met and that large documents can be split up between several qualified translators. For larger projects it may be useful to appoint a project manager who ensures timely delivery, oversees the editing process, guarantees confidentiality, keeps the clients up to date, and coordinates the final formatting and quality control.

10. Translations and ancillary services

To execute translation projects efficiently, some additional services may be required. For example, to facilitate the use and acceptance of legal documents in foreign countries, it can be necessary to have the translated documents notarized or/and certified. Furthermore, digitization, character recognition or desktop publishing services can sometimes be needed to provide a presentation of the translated documents in accordance with the publication requirements of the client,

In conclusion, poor translations can make or break an international commercial negotiation or litigation case and parties can end up with a host of legal challenges. Therefore, clients must look for translation providers with the required quality standards to reduce the risk of legal problems and increase their standing with their overseas partners, as they naturally judge based on their native language.

Expertise, reliability through solid processes and transparency, as well as a trusted relationship are therefore the best predictors of success in this area.

View on AmazonTranslating Law by Deborah Cao
"This book investigates legal translation in its many facets ... [it] examines legal translation from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering theoretical and practical grounds and linguistic as well as legal issues ... [and] analyses legal translation competence and various types of legal texts including contracts, statutes and multilateral legal instruments, presents a comparative analysis ..."